by Andy Clark
‘Knights,’ he cried, ‘shields front!’
A savage volley of fire flashed out of the smoke from the bridge’s far end. Danial’s instruments lit up with warning runes and his shield blazed like a newborn star. Oath faltered mid stride, its foot crunching down on the ferrocrete divider between two transit-lanes. Danial swore as he wrestled to keep his Knight upright and moving forwards. His augmented cerebrum expanded to filter dozens of information-streams at once, and he cursed again as he took in the full measure of the threat.
Through the drifting smoke, Danial saw the Knights of House Wyvorn blocking their path, gathered at the far end of the bridge with weapons primed. The warning from Danial’s throne had saved his Knights from complete devastation, but still Luk’s Sword of Heroes had sustained damage to its right hip and carapace, while Sire Rikhardt Dar Minotos had lost his Crusader’s gatling cannon, and been struck repeatedly in the torso armour. Worst hit was Sire Jeremial Dar Pegasson, whose shield collapsed under the thunderous volley. A trio of shrieking warheads slammed into the Pegasson Knight, blowing out its torso and ripping away its right arm at the shoulder. The third missile struck low, a well-aimed tripping shot that crashed through the Knight’s shins, shredding motor-bundles and armour plating. Carried by its own momentum, Sire Jeremial’s steed lurched forward as its legs were blown out from under it. The Knight toppled like a stricken olidarne tree, impacting face-first upon the bridge’s surface. Sparks and flame filled the air as the steed skidded and slowed. It did not stop soon enough, tipping over the edge of the bridge and plunging into the fires below.
Panic threatened, but Danial forced it down with the aid of his ghosts.
‘Knights! Present and tilt.’ He paused, teeth gritted as his cockpit shook around him. ‘We charge their line and break straight through! Draconsfire!’
‘Draconsfire!’ they bellowed, willing their steeds into a lumbering charge. Danial fired his thermal cannon at one of the acid green Knights blocking off the mouth of the bridge. The energies splashed against his target’s shield to no effect, and Danial hissed in frustration. His warriors were firing back, launching missiles overhead from the back ranks, but the battlefield was so tight that only a handful of the loyalists could get a clear shot. The enemy fired another thunderous volley, then another. Lady Eleanat screamed as her Knight took a punishing hit to the sternum. Sire Olric’s Draconsflame stumbled as shots tore through its carapace and set alight to multiple reactor cells.
‘How did they catch us?’ asked Luk, his voice lurching with the running gait of his Knight. Sword of Heroes was trailing flames from rents in its armour, but the Freeblade charged all the same.
‘Old trick,’ grunted Sire Markos. ‘Shrouded reactors on low power, hidden behind enough fire and smoke. You can’t see them ‘till they rouse their steeds, and do this.’
True to form, the Wyvorn Knights’ discipline was crumbling, their volleys devolving into a frenzied hail of shots. The Knights of Danial’s lance were forced to slow, leaning into the bombardment with their shields front. Those behind were slowed in turn, the charge reduced to a trudging advance. A shell detonated amongst Polluxis’ Crawlers, slamming one vehicle onto its side and reducing another to a crater. Sire Percivane’s shield flickered and a stream of gatling fire stitched his Knight’s helm and carapace. Danial swore as a thermal blast tore into Sire Olric’s limping Draconsflame. The noble Knight screamed as his cockpit melted around him.
Danial fired again and felt a momentary stab of satisfaction as his blast bored through the Knight that had slain Sire Olric, collapsing its shield and detonating its armoured torso. The machine’s reactor vented roiling plasma that seared through the armour of the Knights to either side. Yet the next second the enemy fire redoubled its fury, and the High King felt Oath of Flame shaking around him.
‘We’ve lost momentum,’ voxed Danial. ‘Front rank lock shields and brace. Concentrate your fire and unseat them one-by-one. It’ll cost us, but we’ll defeat them through fire discipline.’
‘We’re bunched up and we can’t bring all our guns to bear,’ voxed Markos. ‘This is a desperate plan, my liege.’
‘It’s the best we’ve got, and we can’t afford to retreat. Even if they don’t cut us to pieces, we’ll never reach the generatorums in time.’
Explosions suddenly blossomed amidst the Wyvorn Knights. The blasts struck home against the left-hand end of the Wyvorn line, sending one Knight pitching forwards into the blazing hell of the trench, and mangling the legs of another.
‘What…?’ began Danial, then he saw the speeding shapes of Donatosian battle tanks. They were racing in along the transitway that ran parallel to the trench’s edge, Leman Russ pattern machines firing as they charged. Traitor banners flew from the vehicles’ turrets, the horned daemon sigil of the Word Bearers. The attack had thrown the Wyvorn Knights into disarray. Those closest to the heretic armour charge were turning their steeds to address it, swinging their shields up to deflect cannon rounds fired from point blank range.
As they did so, the fire pouring into the Adrastapolians slackened. At the same time, new targets presented themselves.
‘Knights!’ said Danial, feeling the draconsfire burning hot. ‘Our enemies have handed us an opportunity. My lance, Lady Jennika’s lance, resume the charge. We’ll break their line and scatter them. Markos, spread your lance along the edge of the bridge and enfilade them.’
‘I’ll teach them what happens when they turn their backs on us, lad,’ said Markos, and a hail of fire whipped across the open gulf to hammer the traitor Knights from behind. At the same time, Danial fed power to the Oath’s actuators and advanced. Luk marched at his right hand in Sword of Heroes, Jennika at his left in Fire Defiant, and the rest of the loyalists pressed in behind them.
They fired as they charged, smashing one Wyvorn Errant onto its back and ripping a leg from a Gallant, causing it to fall with a thunderous crash. Still the enemy fire hammered their shields and hulls, but its weight was reducing by the second as more Knights turned away to deal with the impertinent traitor militia. The heretics’ tanks were being obliterated, stomped into wreckage, kicked into the trench or blown apart by overwhelming weapons fire. The distraction had been an Emperor-sent stroke of good fortune, and all the opening that the loyalist Knights needed. Danial snarled in satisfaction as he rammed his running chainsword into the guts of a Wyvorn Knight. Sparks and wreckage spat from the machine’s midriff, and Danial felt Oath’s hull shudder as its weapon’s cutting teeth chewed through adamantium and plasteel. A dull thud rang from deep within the enemy Knight, followed by a cloud of flame and smoke that billowed from the ragged wound. He wrenched his weapon free and his foe’s steed slumped backwards, belching fire.
‘For the Emperor!’ cried Danial, his voice booming from his Knight’s vox-amplifiers.
More Adrastapolian Knights charged off the bridge behind him. Sword of Heroes deftly sidestepped a haymaker punch from a Gallant’s thunderstrike gauntlet before coring the Wyvorn Knight’s torso with its thermal cannon. Jennika loped Fire Defiant between two Wyvorn Knights, spraying stubber fire into the helm of one before turning to hack her chainsword through the other’s waist. The second machine was torn in half, while the first fired its battle cannon point blank only to have the shot impact against Jennika’s rear-tilted shield. Rotating her steed’s torso in a half circle, the Lady Tan Draconis lunged past her remaining enemy’s guard, hacking its chainsword arm off before driving her reverse swing into the machine’s chest. She gutted the second engine, then stepped back to hammer shells into the rear of a third Wyvorn Knight.
The fight had turned in their favour. Fourteen loyalist Knights remained and, though battered and damaged, they were driving the Wyvorn force back. The last of the heretic tanks had been obliterated, but the traitor Knights’ efforts at self-preservation had shattered their lines and cost them the battle. Those not shot down or ripped to pieces at close quarters had begun a fighting retreat down the primary arterial tha
t led off the bridge. At its end was a huge plaza, framed by buildings and statues. The Square of Martyrs, according to Danial’s cartographic inloads. A platform rose at its centre, and atop it the fire blackened remains of a strange metal cage. Beyond, looming over the intervening buildings, were the generatorums. And, by the grace of the Emperor, his Knights would reach them yet.
‘All those too damaged to advance, remain here,’ ordered Danial. ‘Effect repairs then catch us up. The rest of you, with me. Drive them like cattle!’
‘They’re on the retreat,’ growled Sire Markos. ‘We have the momentum. Don’t waste it.’
Four Knights dropped out of formation, Lady Eleanat amongst them. All were badly damaged, but kept their weapons up and ready as Polluxis’ Crawlers went to work with what little they had left.
Ten Knights pressed on down the processional, following the fleeing Wyvorn Knights. Danial, Jennika, Luk and Markos stayed close together, the surviving members of the Draconis Exalted Court. With them came Suset Dar Draconis, Garath Dar Draconis, and Percivane Dar Draconis, alongside Sires Federich and Rikhardt Dar Minotos, and Lady Tamsane Dar Pegasson.
‘So few of us left, from so many,’ said Danial ruefully as they marched past the abandoned platform and its burned cage, entering a long avenue lined with defaced statues.
‘Enough of us, sire,’ replied Markos grimly. ‘To do what needs to be done.’
‘We may not live through this, but our honour will,’ said Luk. ‘And Emperor willing, so will Donatos.’
‘Are you lot leaving it up to me to be the bloody optimist?’ grunted Sire Garath.
They emerged from the Saints’ Walk, between towering gothic structures, and into the edge of a vast and terrible storm of light and noise. Battle raged before them. Knights fired thunderous volleys into clattering, roaring daemon engines. Massed cultists traded fire with spike-helmed traitor militia from behind barricades of wreckage. Before the monolithic flanks of generatorum block two, beneath the hellish light of the warp anomaly, the traitor Knights of House Chimaeros and Wyvorn were locked in desperate battle with the forces of the Word Bearers, fighting a hideous war of mutual annihilation.
Gerraint Tan Chimaeros was furious. The burden of command was always heavy, but in this war he had been forced to make terrible choices and painful sacrifices again and again. His cause was just and honourable, Alicia had reassured him more than once. The Imperium had been a leech upon the heart of Adrastapol for far too long, and after what his erstwhile friend had done to House Chimaeros, to Gerraint’s only brother…? Both had to go.
Besides, the Lord of Fates commanded it, and one did not gainsay a god. Not a true one, anyway.
Yet none of these justifications cast his conduct in a good light. He was painfully aware that Houses Chimaeros and Wyvorn looked like traitors, and he a monster. His own son, sacrificed upon the altar of ambition. There was nothing in the Code that could condone such a thing, and it still shamed him to think how he had betrayed the lad.
Regardless of what had passed, only absolute victory would guarantee that Gerraint and his allies were perceived by their people as the dutiful, noble and honourable warriors they were. History was a tapestry woven by victors, after all. But as he stared up at the roiling column of unnatural fire thundering into the heavens, Gerraint was less sure than ever of that victory.
A day ago, House Chimaeros had possessed ninety-two operable steeds, House Wyvorn another thirty, along with whatever secret weapon Dunkan Tan Wyvorn’s House was keeping hidden away. He doubted they could claim even half that strength now. Thirty Knights of House Chimaeros and ten of Wyvorn were deployed through the peripheral warzones, ready to subdue the defenders of the Adamant Citadels and eliminate the outlying Word Bearers. If reports were to be believed then they had done their duty commendably, but still Gerraint wished that he had their strength with him. The simple fact was that he and Alicia had both underestimated the Word Bearers. Not just their monstrous strength, or the fanaticism of the cultists that served them, but their absolute willingness to sacrifice everything in the name of victory.
After banishing the weapon-spirits of the valle electrum’s Adamant Citadel, Xedediah Kar Mechanicus had used the fortress’ auspex arrays to enhance the strategic overlay of the Chimaeros Knights. The tapestry it wove was a desperate one. The Word Bearers warships in orbit had turned their fire on all targets, abandoning their positions above the valle electrum – and seemingly all strategic sense – to hunt and kill indiscriminately. On the planet below, Word Bearers warbands had raced back to the valle electrum by air in response to Gerraint’s attack. The enemy had redeployed their strength with breathtaking speed, abandoning the outer warzones to secure this site. He had thought it desperation until the column of light roared up from generatorum two, and reports filtered in of Word Bearers cultists committing mass acts of self-destruction over pentagrams of their own blood. After that, the enemy’s strategy had begun to seem both insane and ominous.
The Word Bearers’ war against the Imperial forces had fallen apart in a matter of hours, and thousands of their turncoat Donatosian followers had been abandoned before the resurgent fury of the Imperial guns. Gerraint was an excellent tactician and a practised deceiver, but his entire worldview still hinged upon concepts of duty, discipline and the conduct dictated by the Code. He could never have envisioned so deranged a strategy, and so he had been wrong-footed. It was understandable, but all the justifications in the Imperium couldn’t assuage his anger.
Now he found himself before the Word Bearers’ stronghold with just eighteen of his own loyal Knights remaining. They had gathered some support from the turncoat Donatosians as they fought their way through the valle electrum’s outer districts. Militiamen changed loyalties once again rather than face the iron gods, or else balked at the obvious wrongness of what was occurring at the city’s heart. Yet even with their added support the fight had been a hard one. Word Bearers forces ambushed them at every turn, hammering his Knights with heavy weapons fire and then falling back before they could be exterminated. Too many good Knights had been lost to drive the foe back to their inner defences. More fell when they broke through and tried to finish the fight.
And then Alicia had warned of whispers in the warp.
Tolwyn’s son, not dead as they had believed, but marching on the valle electrum with a substantial force. For the first time in Gerraint’s memory, his queen had sounded uncertain.
Gerraint had been forced to divide his forces further at that dire news, commanding that Dunkan Tan Wyvorn deal with the boy king while he and Alicia dealt the killing blow to Varakh’Lorr. The Archduke Tan Wyvorn had despatched almost all of his House’s remaining strength to lay a trap for the loyalists, while he himself had made for the nearby Angelum Stellar spaceport. Seeing the severity of the situation, Tan Wyvorn had declared it time for him to deploy his House’s ‘hidden strength’, and marched away with his last few Knights in attendance.
By Gerraint’s chrono, that had been nearly an hour earlier. Whatever his ally was planning, it was needed very soon for the battle grew desperate.
At last, they fought in the shadow of the generatorum. The Chimaeros Knights had driven a lancepoint through the enemy’s defences, Gerraint leading in his Knight Warden, Therianthros. He wore Tolwyn’s captured crown, and his steed’s chainsword had been replaced with the relic energy blade he had claimed from his old comrade’s.
Guns thundering, god-like footfalls crushing cultists and flattening weapons emplacements, the Knights were pushing forward unstoppably. Fire rained down upon them from three sides, lascannon beams and krak missiles lashing the Knights’ shields from the generatorum windows, and from the tall buildings to either side of the plaza. More came from the last handful of Word Bearers tanks and daemon engines. These used the ruins for cover, hammering shots into the Chimaeros steeds with lethal accuracy.
Gerraint tilted his Knight’s shield to deflect incoming las-fire from the right. Two blinks and his target
ers had isolated the enemy firing at him, and a mass of onrushing cultists to the fore. Deft twitches of his fingers sent cluster-missiles roaring down from Therianthros’ carapace housing to engulf the screaming zealots. At the same time, the Warden’s battle cannon roared, hurling a pair of shells into a Word Bearers Predator. The first shot deformed the forward hull plating. The second punched right through, detonating the battle tank from within and entombing it in an avalanche of masonry and rubble.
‘Knights,’ barked Gerraint in his deep, commanding voice. ‘Keep your shields interlocked and your weapons up. Pintle weaponry only against the generatorum. Save your larger guns for the flanking forces.’
Another volley of fire lashed down from the gothic arches of the generatorum, hammering their shields. Sire Deldric cursed as his Knight’s right knee joint was mangled.
‘Sire, permission to fire upon the generatorum at full effect,’ he voxed. ‘They’re tearing holes in us.’
Gerraint took another striding step forward, uncaring for the insect-like infantry battling about his steed’s feet. His targeting reticules locked multiple foes across the generatorum’s floors. The building wasn’t even heavily armoured.
Kill them… whispered the ghosts of his throne. Kill… slaughter… give sacrifice…
Gerraint narrowed his eyes, and drove the voices out. A sparking pressure squirmed and crackled through his neural jacks, nauseating him. Something was wrong, he knew it, but he didn’t have time to question it now.
‘Denied, Sire Deldric,’ he replied angrily. ‘We need the generatorum operational. A single stray shell could blow us all into the arms of the gods. And I’m not ready to die here because you couldn’t show restraint.’
‘Understood, sire,’ snarled Deldric, and Gerraint’s frown deepened as he heard a susurrus of half-heard words underlying the man’s voice. The Lord of Fate’s blessings were manifesting themselves quickly, it seemed, and in ways Gerraint had not expected.